With Resident Evil: Revelations out in a week, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City due for release in March, and rumours of Resident Evil 6 scattered over the web, I must say I wasn’t actually expecting an announcement AND trailer this suddenly. But it’s here – the official reveal of Resident Evil 6. And judging by the trailer, I’m excited.
Zombies, glorious zombies. While the Resident Evil series has moved away from them at late (in favour of the less dead-looking and agile Majinis), it seems that Capcom are finally bringing Resident Evil’s iconic zombies back to the core, numbered series – not totally unsurprising, what with prequels Raccoon City and Revelations also focusing on our skin challenged friends. Of course, people cry – how can zombies be threatening in today’s games considering how slow they are? Well, it seems the location of Tall Oaks has been majorly compromised – with 70,000 infected. It’s all about numbers with zombies, assuming you have the amount of ammo we saw in Resident Evil 5.
That’s not to say that zombies will be the only enemy in the game – with powerful BOWs (Bio-Organic Weapons) also popping up around the world, and it seems that the Majini threat is also still present, giving us the gun-toting parasitic threat as well as the zombie outbreak. While I wasn’t a huge fan of Majinis as a replacement for zombies, I can happily see the two co-existing nicely.
So who are the lucky ones to deal with this new threat? Well, it seems many of the fans will finally be getting their prayers answered – Chris Redfield and Leon S Kennedy are co-starring for the first time in the series, with co-op modes also confirmed to be making a return (although no real details have been given at this point). While it’s clear that the game will not be returning to Resident Evil’s survival horror roots, it seems that Capcom are trying to pull out all the stops in giving fans what they want while evolving the gameplay in a way that feels natural – the bioterrorism threat becoming ever closer to a zombie apocalypse. With a game-style executive producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi calls “dramatic horror,” it sounds as though we’ll be seeing a mixture of action and horror – so hopefully that means that although the game will still be action-based, we’ll be seeing a few more scares than in RE5, which was sorely lacking for a Resident Evil title.
The plot itself of course revolves around more attacks from bioterrorists, though who is pulling the strings is anyone’s guess. Ten years have passed since Raccoon City, and the President has decided to go public with the truth of the events. However, Leon is forced to make a tough decision when the President, who is also his personal friend, becomes infected. Elsewhere in China, another attack has taken place with Chris on the scene – and it seems that the world’s population has to unite under the common threat of bioterrorism, though filled with fear that nothing will now be able to stop what has been put into motion. That said, it’s a little strange as Resident Evil 6 seems to be set before Resident Evil 5 – set ten years after the Raccoon City Outbreak in 1998, while the events in Kijuju took place in 2009. Considering the scale of things happening in RE6, it seems very odd that everything’s been cleared up within a year. That, and I was fairly sure that Chris had never encountered a Majini before Resident Evil 5, though that might have just been my own assumption. Hopefully more light will be shed on this closer to the game’s release.
There are, of course, new characters joining the fray as well. An unnamed mercenary who fights bare-fisted is featured prominently in the trailer, his female companion stating “the world needs you”. He responds “no, no, not me. Just me blood. Well the world can have it, long as someone ponies up the dough.” Perhaps his blood contains an antidote for the zombie virus, at least that’s my guess. Sounds like he’s going to play a key role in the plot, but doesn’t appear to be taking a particular side – he’s featured fighting against BOWs, yet doesn’t seem in a hurry to relinquish his blood for whatever greater good it holds. There is also a woman who claims to be at fault for the outbreak, and Chris seems to have a vendetta against a certain woman – though it’s not clear if this is the same lady. Could she be a villain, or just a pawn?
Gameplay wise, Resident Evil seems to play similarly to Resident Evil 5, although with some changes. Firstly, it’s clear that Chris and Leon have a few special moves up their sleeves, such as shooting whilst leaping backward, and rolling manoeuvres. Also, melee attacks look as if they could be a little deepened, as Leon is shown planting an axe in the head of one enemy. Looks like enemies have been given a few new tricks, too – with one Majini extending it’s parasitic arm over the cover that Chris was hidden behind and grabbing him, yanking him up into the air.
Visually, the game is looking good and the animation looks clean – one gameplay scene shows Chris running through a street in China as civilians flee, pushing them out of the way and shoving a reporter’s video camera out of his face while making his way through the wreckage. One thing I also noticed was that the game seems to be set mostly at night – one thing that RE5 deviated from that did seem to take away some of that Resident Evil atmosphere.
While it’s unclear on exactly how the game will turn out at this point, the initial footage has definitely got me excited. It looks to me that Capcom have taken the Resident Evil 5 style and worked upon it, while simultaneously trying to put lots of fan-service into the mix. I do hope the game will have a good amount of scares in it, but I’m sure it can’t have less scares than RE5. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.
We’ve also been given a release date – the 20th November. A while off, yet – but better than some of the waits we’ve had to endure between announcement and release *cough*FinalFantasyVersusThirteen*cough*. Plus, we’ve got Operation: Raccoon City and Revelations to keep us busy till then – two titles I’m even more excited for now.
-Leon
Holy Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick, that looked so beautiful I would pony up the cash now just to play it. I can’t beileve it its just seems to good to be true. Put it this way Capcom pull this off and this game will make it onto the list of the best games ever, you know the one’s everyone remembers loads later, like Resident Evil 2. Go Capcom were rooting for you dont let us down.